“UNEXPECTED GIFTS”:Can we learn from our ancestral past? Do our relatives’ behaviors help mold our own? In "Unexpected Gifts," that is precisely what happens to Sonia, a confused college student, heading for addictions and forever choosing the wrong man. Searching for answers, she begins to read her family’s diaries and journals from America’s past: the Vietnam War, Woodstock, and Timothy Leary era; Tupperware parties, McCarthyism, and Black Power; the Great Depression, dance marathons, and Eleanor Roosevelt; the immigrant experience and the Suffragists. Back and forth the book journeys, linking yesteryear with modern life until finally, by understanding her ancestors' hardships and faults, she gains enough clarity to make some right choices.Amazon: http://amzn.to/13ar2pa Book Trailer: http://bit.ly/18cSWUG

“SEWING CAN BE DANGEROUS AND OTHER SMALL THREADS”:

The eleven long short stories in “Sewing Can Be Dangerous and Other Small Threads combine history, mystery, action and/or romance, and range from drug trafficking using Guatemalan hand-woven wallets, to an Antebellum U.S. slave using codes in her quilts as a message system to freedom; from an ex-journalist and her Hopi Indian maid solving a cold case together involving Katchina spirits, to a couple hiding Christian passports in a comforter in Nazi Germany; from a wedding quilt curse dating back to the Salem Witchcraft Trials, to a mystery involving a young seamstress in the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire; from a 1980’s Romeo and Juliet romance between a rising Wall Street financial ‘star’ and an eclectic fiber artist, to a Haight-Asbury love affair between a professor and a beautiful macramé artist gone horribly askew, just to name a few.Amazon: http://amzn.to/1coUKMl Book Trailer: http://bit.ly/1g37MAb

2) How long did it take you to write your books?

“Unexpected Gifts,” because there was so much research involved, took me a generous three years to write from start to finish.

“Sewing Can Be Dangerous and Other Small Threads,” which was actually written before I attempted to write “Unexpected Gifts,” went through various stages: first draft, second draft, its desertion in a cabinet due to going back to school to become an ESL teacher, arevisit because of a friend’s encouragement, then several more drafts. In other words, this book was started and worked on for over a good fifteen years before it ever got published.

3) What is your favorite genre? And why?

I like to write historical fiction mainly because I LOVE doing all the research, but as for my reading tastes, I’m pretty eclectic. I like psychological and political thrillers, murder mysteries, comedies, light weight romances, serious subjects, nonfiction and more recently, have gotten into some well written fantasies and science fiction.

4) Who inspires you?

Rather than answer ‘who,’ I would have to answer ‘what’: perhaps something small which is a part of a bigger event; some trait in a character that I am drawn to from a movie or have read about in history; music that stirs my heart, soul, and mind; looking at a photograph and instantly thinking about the person and the surroundings. THESE are the things that endlessly inspire me.

5) What are you working on now?

I’m getting together another collection of short stories for publication. Currently the manuscript is in the hands of various beta readers. I have also started working on an historical western romance, which happily puts me right smack in the old, Wild West, and smoldering in the wings, is a Civil War murder mystery/missing person’s story.

My Bio:I have worn various hats in my life. Starting out as a classical/pop singer/composer, I moved on to the professional world of production art and calligraphy. Next came a long career as an award winning quilt artist/teacher and an ESL/Reading instructor. Currently, I am still teaching ESL part time, tutoring English, researching, writing, editing, and cherishing my family and friends to no end. Alas, my sewing machine, however, lies dormant off to one side of my studio.My short stories have been published in “descant 2008,” “Snowy Egret,” “Transcendent Visions,” “The Storyteller,” and “Down In the Dirt”. Unexpected Gifts, my debut novel, is currently available on Amazon, as is Sewing Can Be Dangerous and Other Small Threads, a collection of short stories. Both books are published by Mockingbird Lane PressMy Social Media Links:Website: http://www.srmallery.com Twitter: SarahMallery1 https://twitter.com/SarahMallery1 Facebook: S.R. Mallery (Sarah Mallery): https://www.facebook.com/pages/SR-Mallery-Sarah-Mallery/356495387768574?ref=hl Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7067421.S_R_Mallery